Induction Project- Evaluation

WIP

Induction Project- Day 19 FINAL DAY

For this last day I came in a little early so we could get the est few things finished. I attached the last arm to Ali, so she's now done. I had hoped to paint her, but there isn't any time for that now. Now all the info had been settled on I finished of the last of the character cards. A couple don't have images, but there's no time now.

FIRST GROUP IN

Our first play through went well. The group manged to beat the boss and win the game. Their feedback was good; they said they enjoyed it.

We saw that it was difficult to keep track of the players health with out anything to right on so some score sheets were made for players to keep track on on. In the break between groups I mounted the card down so they weren't just paper, which took longer than I thought, as I had to wait for the glue to dry.
Coughing fit.

SECOND GROUP IN

More coughing fits. Missed most of what was happening. Colds suck.

Induction Project- Day 18

Still no super glue! Instead, me and Laura started to mod-rock over the wire mesh we had made on the board. Once we had done, there wasn't much of the day left so I tried to put one of the arms on my moulding it together with some green stuff. I seemed to work alright.

Induction Project- Day 16

I wanted to finish attaching the arms to Ali today, but we had no super glue. Instead me and Laura continued to work on the game board. We cut out some wire mesh which we'll be using to create some mountains to edge the board.  It took a while to get the positioning right (and I totally didn't cut myself while trimming the wire)

Indution Project- Day 15

I've been working on details on the arms and head of the figure. I snipped of the wire loop that I had left exposed when the head should be. Using a little green stuff I made a thin neck. The toothpick I had molded the head on had left a hole underneath, which I could easily slot over the neck, which I then smoothed together.

To finish off me and Laura started to paint our game board. We created the effect of the terrain my dabbing shades of brown and green over a charcoal base. Then using some blue shades we made a small pond on the board too.

Induction Project- Day 12

All of today was spent continuing my figure. Yesterday I got the basic form of the body and legs done, so I covered those with thin layers of green stuff, which I molded to look like her jeans and top and boots.

While I waited for that to cure for a while, I started creating her head. It was slightly smaller than the one I had done before, but I feel it turned out alright. Once the main head had hardened slightly I added on some thing strips of clay for hair and left that to cure.

I switched back to the body, to which I added the belt going round her body. Having gone on break, the head had cured a little so I adding in Ali's goggles, then added another layer of hair.

Lastly I started to work on her arms. These were modeled separately from the body. It was tricky to work out how they should be placed, but I could see where they should go by positioning the wire armature in the right places.

I left the four separate pieces to fully cure of the weekend. I'm hoping to get the figure done by Monday, but if not Tuesday at the latest, so I can focus in the other elements of the project.

Induction Project- Day 11

Today we started work on developing our figures of our characters. Though I'm happy with the picture of Ali I produced the other day, it's not the pose I have chosen for the figure. I thought her just standing wouldn't be that interesting. So inspired by the photos I took of myself posing, I'm modelling Ali crouched down on to one knee, pulling out a tool from a toolbox. I may vary from the picture a little by having her looking up, to show she is in the process of doing something and her face can be seen.

I got the basic form of her body and legs done. Her head and arms are meant to be added later.

Induction Project- Day 9

Pretty much all of today was spend working on a finished picture of Ali. This will be used in our game document for her profile and on her stat card. The image on the card will mostly like just be of her head and shoulders, so the card can be keep small.

Ali the Engineer

Induction Project- Day 8

Again we started today with presenting what we had done so far, this time in our groups. Once that had finished we sat down to continuing work on the project.

Spend a while working on things for this blog, such as (finaly) get the photos of the first sulpting try up and the photos of me posing edited.

For the game guide we're making for the game we each had a bio to write for our characters, fromt hier point of view. While writing mine I decided on a name for my character: Ali, short for Alice.
Ali's Bio

Induction Project- Day 5

Today started with a talk about game play dynamics and character archetypes.

Differentiating characters in a game allows for player choice. Giving people a choice allows for player investment e.g. A favorite champion in LoL, a favorite class in TF2, their main WoW character. People become attached to their characters and it makes them want to continue playing the game. Also, by giving different characters strengths and weaknesses, you encourage collaborative play between players.

In game play terms, an archetype is a common character seen often in games. These often appear as classes, of which there is generally four kinds; Damage Soaker (Tank), Damage Dealer, Healer and Utility (Support). Balancing the classes ensures variety and that there is no "I win" button. Like in a game of rock, paper, scissors, everything should be strong against something and weak against something.

After that we moved on to forming groups and started work on creating our games and the mechanics for them.We started by deciding to have a stat system for each of our characters. Looking at our designs we decided which character archetype would be suitable. In the end we had a damage soaker, two damage dealers, a healer and a utility which was my character.

The stats for each of the characters are;
HP: Health
Attack: Damage dealt
Defense: Damage received is reduced by this %
Speed: Turn order- fastest goes first
Range: How far away a character can attack from
Skill Point: Needed to used abilities

Inspired by Skylanders, a game which in itself uses figures, I suggested the idea of having stat cards for our characters so that people don't have to remember all the stats of the top of their heads.

We added abilities to each of the characters. They have passive abilities which constantly happen and active abilities which require the player to activate them and which use up the characters skill points (mana). The damage dealers and the damage soaker don't have many skill points in comparison to the healer and the utility. The healer and the utility also have an extra ability.

I finished with going up with designs for the cards. I looked at cards from Pokemon TCG, WoW TCG, Top Trumps and Magic the Gathering for ideas.

Induction Project- Day 4

Today we had our first look at sculpting. This was the first time I had modeled using a type of putty (Play doh when you're 4 doesn't count!) so I eager to give it a try.

We have two types of material available:
Epoxy Putty: After two hours a reaction occurs making the putty slightly warm.. After two more hours the putty becomes rock solid and is sand-able and carve-able.

Green Stuff: Consists of yellow and blue strips which need to be kneaded together. Very sticky and becomes firm over time.

All sorts of tools can be used when modeling: Scalpels, cocktail stick spatulas etc.

We created three things; a bed roll, a bag pack and a head.

For my first time modeling I'm quite happy with how they all looked. With some more practice I hope I will be able to create a good figure of my character.

Induction Project- Day 3

First full day of the project not spent at collage. I had a few things to do, but once they were done I worked on this blog a little bit. I thought about how if I'm going to make a figure of my character, I'm going to need an all round reference to work from, along with an idea of what sort of pose I want her to be in.

Induction Project- Day 2

Today were given some orthographic reference sheets for both males and female. With help from these we were to create and orthographic drawing of our character to be used as a reference when making our figure.

Induction Project- Day 1

This was our first full day back at college. The full project was revealed to us. The character that we had designed will be made in to a small figure. Working together as a group we will then to to create a game that those figures will be used in.

The first half of the day was spent by everyone presenting what they had done over the holidays (You can see what I did in the previous post) Embarrassingly though, I'd forgotten to put the final concept art piece I had done on my memory stick so I was unable to present that.
After we had presented it was decided that we should look at the anatomy and proportions of a human a little. With a guide we drew three different sized people; Average, Typical Hero and an Anti Hero. As my character is female, I drew female proportions. They're a little off, but not too bad I feel.

Female proportions

Half way through the day we had a break for lunch. When we returned we had our first look at Ludology, a rather fancy word meaning the study of games (I did not know that) We were looking specifically at randomizes and how they are used in games.

Induction Project- Day 0

During the summer we were given the task of creating a character for a post apocalyptic world. This was the brief we were provided with:

Summer Brief

My initial reaction to this brief was:

There's a lot to think about for this task. Though the main focus is the character design, I need to think about the environment the character will be in. The setting should be post apocalyptic, and I also have to think of what 'The Event' was, when it happened and how it affected the world and my character.
My character has to be humanoid, but not strictly human, so my character can be mutated in some way if I desire.

1st design

Initial Design

Drake from Uncharted 3

I came up with this design quite quickly after we were given our task. The image of a tough, battle hardened rough around the edges fighter is what first came to mind. Perhaps it's what I first thought of because it's an image that has been used before in games such as Uncharted. At the time I drew this image I didn't notice, but now I go back and look at it, I can actually see little similarities between this character and Drake. After I thought about it some more, the more I grew to dislike this design. I felt is was too generic.

2nd Design

Argonian from TES Skyrim

My second idea was to have a character with animal like mutations caused by nuclear fallout. I went off this idea very quick. The designs I created just didn't really fit in with the idea of a post apocalyptic world in my view. Again, I realized that my designs bore a resemblance to something already in existence, in this case the Argonian and Khajiit from The Elder Scrolls series.
I decided to think more about the world and how my character would fit into it.

The Event

This idea came to me after hearing that such a thing may be possible on the Discovery Channel.
The sun emits electromagnetic waves, but normally they are small and don't effect us. However, if there is an extremely large wave, it could knock out all electrical equipment and erase all data. If this happened world wide, it could cause society to collapse, especially in the future if people became more dependent on technology.
I picture there would be riots and panic as communications go down, there are power cuts and all electronic information is lost.
I think I'd set the game a few years after this happened, so my character has had time to adjust to the new circumstances a bit.
I picture this world could be almost steam pinkish. The player would have to fight against other to survive and scavenge food, along with parts and bits of scrap to make new equipment.

3rd Idea

This is the third design I came up with. I really like this design and will be using it the final design for my character. During the holiday, I didn't know what the character design would be needed for, so I thought that perhaps a further picture of my character set in the world would be helpful.